2 laptops 1 high speed modem. How to share through wireless?

I have a high speed modem and 2 laptops. 1 macbook and 1 windows vista laptop. Both have wifi. Is there a way to share the internet between them with only 1 of them being hooked into the modem?

I think I saw something about it before. I do have my macbook set to dual boot so I can use windows as well, but would prefer to use OS X.


I won't be getting a wireless router until Next week.

 

Check out this thread: Use Your Computer as a Wireless Router.

 

I have it set up in OS X but the vista laptop won't connect to it?

 

I think the only option when sharing from the Mac's Airport is WEP (40-bit or 128-bit encryption). If you use your Windows notebook to share the connection from, then you should be able to use WPA/WPA2.

 

ok. Im going to try turning even the WEP off and see if the vista one will connect.

 

The vista laptop will connect with no encryption, but errors if there is encryption.

 

When you click to connect to the Network in Vista you should be prompted for the WEP password and your computer should connect. I don't have Vista installed anymore so all I can provide is a Microsoft link: Connecting to Wireless Networks with Windows Vista.

Maybe a firewall is interfering with the connection. Also try disabling/reconfiguring the firewalls on both computers.

Peace.

 

I'll try to give that a shot. Thanks xander. It's strange with no encryption is connects just fine to my macbook. With the WEP it just errors, but works for all other wireless connections.

 

I've turned off both firewalls with the same results. Is OS X doing something screwy? It works fine without any security, but I don't want everyone in the condo leaching my internet and doing whatever illegal stuff they want to that comes back to me.

 

Have you tried the 40-bit WEP instead of 128-bit? It's possible that your Windows machine doesn't support 128-bit WEP encryption.

Also, does it need to be the MacBook that is connected directly to the modem? You could also try sharing from the Windows machine's wireless connection and you'll likely be able to use WPA/WPA2 encryption; the video provides information for this too.

 

I did try 128 and 40bit and neither of them worked. The vista machine just gives an error. The macbook is the machine that is always on and is used for the most things online. I will try it the other way and have the windows machine broadcast.

 

I have it being broadcasted with WEP encryption over the windows vista machine and using it on my macbook. Sometimes go fast, but other things go terribly slow this way. Is this normal? I was really hoping on both being able to play WoW until we could afford our router.

With it how it is Skype is to slow to make a phone call on a 6MB connection from the macbook

 

WEP can be cracked with freeware these days, it's really worth it to get a $40 router.

 

I'm currently doing it with no encryption. It was to slow from the vista machine to the macbook (which is the primary used one)

 

Your problem has been my nightmare for years
The best solution is get a good D-Link or LinkSys router and set it up using the windows machine.....
Then just type in the code into your mac and you will be fine....
I have yet to be able to setup a realiable mixed pc & mac network using the airports
Plus with a real wireless router you will definetly get full bandwidth

 

Sorry to bring this up again, but I just installed Windows Vista Ultimate x86 on my MBP and remembered this thread. My iMac G5 is connected directly to the cable modem and is broadcasting a shared internet connection to the MBP with Windows Vista (Boot Camp Beta v1.4).

At first I was unable to connect, but then I configured the connection manually and it's working at full speed with 40-bit WEP encryption. Basically all I had to do was change the Security Type in Vista to Shared.

What I did was go to Start --> Connect To --> Set up a connection or network --> Manually connect to a wireless network.

Click Next and enter the Network SSID (Name), select WEP as the Security Type, enter the password and click Next.

Windows won't be able to connect just yet because Vista is silly like that. Click Diagnose the Problem, then click View the wireless security settings... and select Shared as the Security Type, WEP Encryption, enter the password again and click OK.

Follow the silly prompt to check your connection and you should then be sharing the internet connection in Windows Vista!

An alternative method is go to Start --> Connect To then right-click your network and choose Properties to make the same changes as described above.

 

Awesome thank you for the follow up Xander! I did end up getting a buffalo wifi router and now have WPA2 encryption with a 64bit random password thing.

But when I go up to WI again this will work with a sprint broadband card I bet so I can still use it